GABRIELE NEHER draws attention to an astoundingly skilled Flemish painter who defied the notion that women cannot paint like men
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Winter gloom
SIMON PARSONS questions whether a dark take on Shakespeare’s Seasonal comedy is in harmony with the original text
(L to R) Cat McKeever as Olivia's Attendant, Daniel Millar as Fabien, Michael Grady-Hall as Feste and Charlotte O’Leary as Olivia’s Woman
[Helen Murray]
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JOHN GREEN suggests that a new, biased, and highly readable re-hash of the story of the Cambridge Five be taken with a large pinch of salt
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a timely reminder of the long history of protests and the outdoor spaces in which they takes place
Twelfth Night
Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon
A BLEAK, funereal setting constantly being touched up with black paint and later dominated by an oversized organ is James Cotterill’s unsettling design for a play that usually champions life and passion.
Director Prasanna Puwanarajah’s dark take on Shakespeare’s bittersweet comedy leans heavily on the bitter, especially where the original text is concerned, and much of the humour is an addition in the form of Feste’s extended clowning routines and modern asides.
It is no surprise that Freema Agyeman’s feisty and emotionally capricious Olivia has rejected Bally Gill’s self-absorbed Orsino and his protestations of love for the youthfully malleable charms of the cross-dressing Viola, Gwyneth Keyworth. In notable contrast to their showy, love-sick affectations is the selfless sincerity of the doomed passion expressed by ill-fated Antonio for the man he dragged from the sea, Sebastian.
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